Do you know?

I should be doing schoolwork, studying veins and arteries, watching documentaries about Gilgamesh, reading Aristotle, yet I am sitting here in a daze, heart aching, plagued by frequent onsets of weeping. Why? Because a beautiful boy took his own life. He was a sweet, funny, polite, full of life and potential ,with greatness spread out before him boy...but this boy must not have been able to see beyond the right now. I wonder, did he know that he was valuable? Did he know that he was wonderful? Did he know that he was smart and busting at the seams with potential? Did he know that God had a plan and a purpose for his life? Did he know that he was loved?


Psalm 139:13-16

For You formed my inward parts;
You covered me in my mother’s womb.
I will praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
Marvelous are Your works,
And that my soul knows very well.
My frame was not hidden from You,
When I was made in secret,
And skillfully wrought in the lowest parts of the earth.
Your eyes saw my substance, being yet unformed.
And in Your book they all were written,
The days fashioned for me,
When as yet there were none of them.

While I think of this sweet child, I ponder....how many others do not know? Do you know? Do you? Do you know that you are amazing? Do you know that every single hair on your head is accounted for and that every day of your life is already known by the One who made you? Do you know that you are loved and enjoyed by God? Do you know He delights in you? Do you know it says He rejoices over you with gladness and with singing? (Zephaniah 3:17)

I just want to shout it from the mountaintops.

 YOU ARE PRECIOUS! 

YOU ARE VALUABLE! 

YOUR LIFE IS A GIFT!

 YOU HAVE BEEN WORTH FIGHTING FOR SINCE THE MOMENT YOU WERE CONCEIVED!

I know this boy was loved. Chances are he knew his mama loved him and his friends loved him. Most stories of suicide involved people who were loved by friends and family. I know one who I am certain could not possibly have been adored and cherished more by his parents. So that makes me ponder even more. I am sure I will continue to roll this around in my head and pray it through for a very long time.

For tonight, I needed to process and yell and cry while sitting here by myself with a heavy heart. I am passionate about people knowing, with a deep intimate, experiential knowledge that they are loved by God. Maybe tonight someone will read this and begin to ponder what it would be like to believe this for themselves. I sure wish I had taken an opportunity to tell this beautiful boy how much he was loved by God. My prayer is that he is finding out face to face tonight.

Beauty for Ashes

This morning I was doing my Bible study on the book of Ruth and the Lord invaded my heart in a mighty way. First, He put a beautiful little verse in my heart for today: Psalm 118:24 This is the day the Lord has made;We will rejoice and be glad in it. Since today is Dave's birthday, I thought about how wonderful to rejoice in the gift of this precious man. Then the Bible study touched on the topic of barrenness, discussing some of the women listed in this particular section (Leah, Rachel, Tamar and of course, Ruth). It asked if there was a place in my life that had been touched by barrenness. What a question...I mean, wow, yes, I have been touched by barrenness. In the days (about 5.5 years worth of days) between the separation from my first husband and when Dave entered my life, there was some serious barrenness. As I thought on it this morning, I could see how my heart had been like a cracked and dry desert...you know, like with tumble weeds blowing through and not even a green cactus growing. Now, I had a rich relationship with God, so my heart was not totally dry and barren, just the part that had been made for relationship, oneness with a husband, marriage and the sweetness of intimacy that comes with having a husband for your best friend. I struggled so many days with waiting, knowing I had been made for marriage, love, deep relationship and intimacy, yet also knowing it was not yet time. My heart ached, longed, yearned for it to come. Proverbs 13:12 was the scripture that stuck with me like a friend, whispering its promise into my heart day after day. Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but when the desire comes, it is a tree of life. I clung to the promises of God and trusted Him for the right timing and the right man. My thoughts wandered from time to time, trying to decide who that right man was going to be, trying to hurry things along, since God seemed a little slow to me, but ultimately, the Lord kept me safe and held me close, saving me from myself!

As I continued on in the study, it had me read Isaiah 61:1-3, which just so happens to be one of my life scriptures, having been a powerful force in my life since about 1995. 
“The Spirit of the Lord God is upon Me,
Because the Lord has anointed Me
To preach good tidings to the poor;
He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted,
To proclaim liberty to the captives,
And the opening of the prison to those who are bound;
2 To proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord,
And the day of vengeance of our God;
To comfort all who mourn,
3 To console those who mourn in Zion,
To give them beauty for ashes,
The oil of joy for mourning,
The garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness;
That they may be called trees of righteousness,
The planting of the Lord, that He may be glorified.”

Oh, the power of this text! The most powerful line to me during my time of barrenness was "to give them beauty for ashes". I believed that the Lord was going to take this burned down, torn up life that I held in my hands and give me beauty in return. What I did not know, was how much beauty He was going to give me. That is what hit me like a ton of bricks this morning. What a beautiful, loving, kind, giving God we serve. I handed Him ashes...a heart that had been crushed, wounded, rejected...a life where dreams and hopes had been set aflame and destroyed...just ashes...dirty, sooty, worthless ashes. In return, He gave me beauty beyond measure. He gave me Himself, a relationship with the Living God, the redeemer of my soul, the greatest Lover  there has ever been or ever will be...and it is a relationship born out of brokenness, loneliness, desperation, suffering and barrenness. I could not have gotten it any other way, and I would not sacrifice it for ease and happiness in those dry, painful days. Then He gave me Dave. Oh happy day!!! This man is beyond anything I could have ever imagined. He is so kind and so full of love and so eager to just pour it out freely and fully and abundantly. He surrounds me with love. He spoils me with love. He looks at me with adoration and I am just blown away! How? How could there even be this kind of love? Only Jesus...that is how! Jesus has given me this precious treasure of a man to love, to learn with, to grow with, to raise children with, to struggle through blended family with (ha!), to dream with and to grow old with in this life. Jesus gave me a partner, a friend, a husband. He gave me a man who loves family, values dedication and loyalty and is devoted to having a family full of love and peace and joy. He gave me a man who loves my Mia and is good to her, which is a precious gift to this mama. Thank you God for this precious gift, this precious man, this priceless treasure that is David James Dickerson.

So now, when I think of my heart, I no longer see that cracked, dry, thirsty, barren desert, instead I see a lush, beauty filled meadow, surrounded by trees that are growing tall and strong, being watered by love, nourished by the sweetness of life in Christ. I see an ocean, deep and wide made for diving in deep to learn about the heart of this man I have been given and for diving deeper into a revelation of the man Christ Jesus through the earthly reality of marriage. I see a rich, colorful, beautiful garden, loaded with fragrant flowers grown in the soil of affliction, watered by the love of God. This heart of mine....it has been redeemed, not just by Jesus, but by the love of my sweet Dave. 

So today, I will remember that God made this day and gave me this gift of life and love. I will rejoice and be glad in it. I will not waste this day. I will count it as a gift and delight in it.Thank you Jesus.

Deep Waters Part 1

It has been on my heart to write this blog for months. However, even when I am on top of the world, super excited and bubbling over with happiness, I am still a procrastinator. Sheesh, deliverance is my only hope there....or maybe a little self discipline. I think they probably feel similar haha! Anyway, I digress. My point here is to share with you the excitement, change and newness that has been my life for the past 9 months. So, here goes.

The skinny...I am in love, head over heels, crazy, madly, for forever in love. It is wonderful. I am truly bubbling up with happiness in my heart, knowing that I have found true love, someone to spend the rest of my life with, to grow old with, to enjoy and endure life with...the good and the bad, including our children's teenage years. And let's be real, even without having a teenager yet, I know that has the potential to be it's own little special plane of hell.

If you are on Facebook, you have seen the photos, but in case you are not and this is like brand new news to you, I am in love with David Dickerson. Every time I say it, or write it or think it, it makes me giggle a little on the inside. Why? Because I have known this man since he was a teenager, a sweet faced, poofy haired 13 year old in my junior high health and p.e. class. Guys, he even asked me out when we were 14. I sweetly declined, telling him that I already had a boyfriend. I tell him all the time that it just took me 26 years to come around and finally realize that he is the one for me. Of course, there is also the possibility that we are only right for each other now that we have experienced those 26 years of life. Either way, I am so grateful to God for a second chance and for the wisdom to say yes this time.

Maybe people wonder why I waited so long to say anything, or maybe you don't care...but I am going to tell you anyway. The truth is, as much as I like to chat and share and hear all about the deep things in everyone else's hearts, I am actually a fairly private person. Somehow, the idea of just casually tossing out the phrase "I am in love", in the middle of just any conversation didn't work for me. There is such an enormity to this that I have had a hard time making light of it, or knowing how to just tell people in a casual way. I, also,am not too fond of being in the spotlight, unless I have a guitar to hide behind, so bringing attention to myself is not really something I do very easily. Truthfully, letter writing has always been a comfortable medium for me and I felt I could tell lots of folks at once this way. So, little by little I have shared pictures and comments to try to break the ice a bit, and now I am writing a blog.  However, behind the scenes, in the midst of our families, Dave and I have been nurturing and growing a very sweet and solid relationship since May.

The way this all began includes our friendship as teens, Dave's comings and goings in my house as we grew up,though mostly as Anna's friend, and his dearness to my mother's heart (she has always loved him). This gave us a history, shared stories of growing up in Mechanicsville, and shared friends. It gave us a familiarity that allowed us to chat with a freedom that does not happen when two strangers meet. It gave Dave the comfort level he needed to tell me to stop talking about running and put my shoes on and do it. That really was the catalyst...a silly little Facebook thread where we talked about his biking and my running. From that little thread in mid- April, a friendship was reignited and it began to gain depth. Within a couple of weeks, we were sharing about our adult lives, our children, our families, our failed marriages, our struggles with alcohol and our freedom from it...really, we talked about everything.

 In mid May I shared with Dave about a young woman , whom I love very much, that was struggling with addiction. He offered to help her find things she was passionate about and started by inviting us all to go for a hike. She loved the idea, so we packed up, and went to Reva, VA where Dave lives on a fantastic little hill. He took us, Mia included, on a hike to a beautiful mountain top view and then down to a gorgeous waterfall. We were all hooked...instantly. We three girls talked about how wonderful the day was, how beautiful the hike was and how easy going and nice Dave was...ALL the way home. We loved it so much, that 5 days later on May 25, 2013, this young woman and I went back to do another hike. This day...well this day was special. Dave and I talked about many things on that hike, including the deep things of God and His creation. We talked about the beauty of nature, he pointed it out, and I photographed it. One of the  highlights of that hike was tasting fiddle heads, thinking that they were edible from something I had read, only to find out they were disgusting and this was NOT the way to eat them. That day, a love for nature, that had lost its fervor over the years, was reawakened in me.  That evening we stuck around, had dinner, and talked about memories of being kids. Dave and I had a blast looking at pictures and just enjoyed each other's company. I think that day, we both knew that there was something very special about the friendship that was growing between us.

Maybe I should stop here and continue in a part 2, so that you do not grow weary of reading my story. But first, I want to say this...what I found out in that first month of talking with Dave again, was that we shared a love for deep conversations, a desire to get to know someone well, to know how they tick, what makes their hearts come alive. We realized that we enjoyed , what we affectionately call, swimming in the deep end. We found in each other someone else who desired to know and to be known. In Dave, I have found one who is deep, deep waters. There is a depth and a beauty to this man's heart that makes me want to know him more, to spend my life loving him, enjoying him, being his best friend and getting to know him more every single day. I am so thankful to Jesus for this precious gift of love and I cannot wait to tell you more of our story soon.

Hmm....

That title sums it up. I am in a state of "hmmm". Like...what does this mean? What do I do? How do I respond? Hmmm....

Sometimes, I just don't know what to do. I have these options in front of me, some that are a bit shaky, a bit uncertain, others that will stretch me so much that I am not even sure they are viable, and all I feel like I can do right now is wait, say hmmm, and try not to over-analyze every.single.thing.

Even as I sit here pondering, I am reminded of my history with God. He likes to teach me about waiting and trusting. I cannot even begin to tell you the number of times that I have found myself in a place of waiting. I have even written about it and confessed that I might like the place of waiting and that when it was gone, I would miss it. What a crazy thing to say! He may have taken me up on that, because here I sit waiting and wondering and I DO NOT LIKE IT! Haha! I am a fickle human being for sure.

In the end though, the wait comes down to a trust issue for me. Do I trust the Lord to care for me, provide for me, watch over the affairs of my life with the love of a father? Do I trust that He is who He says He is?

When I look at it like that, I almost blush with embarrassment that I would allow a few little choices to cause me angst. Really?? He is the God of the universe and He is madly in love with me, attending to every moment of my life with diligence and care, knowing even the number of hairs on my head! He is good and kind and trustworthy. He is never late, never early, but He is always, always, always on time. His timing is perfect. Sigh....did you read that? I am going to say it again...His timing is perfect. There it is...beautiful truth. Truth that sets my heart at ease. Truth that reminds me that I need not worry or wonder. Truth that allows me to rest in His ability to take care of me.

I have been singing for years, in my song How Could I Love Another, that He is my friend, my savior, my maker and my husband. How quickly I forget. The role that has comforted me the most over the past 6 or 7 years is that of husband. This is not in a weird Jesus is my boyfriend way...because umm He is GOD not my boyfriend. This is simply the role that provides for me, cares for my heart, protects me, makes sure that I am not only loved but that I feel loved and draws me near to comfort me when I need it. Maybe that looks different to you, but for me, that is what it means. So...if He is all of those things to me and does all of those things for me, and I choose to believe it and walk in that truth, then I never ever need to worry or have angst about waiting. I know that His timing is perfect, His love for me is perfect, His provision for me is perfect, and on and on the list goes.

So really...I do not care if another living soul reads this post. I think today it served as a reminder. I started writing because I felt uneasy and frustrated  and as I write the truth, peace is flooding my heart. Sometimes all it takes is a reminder. So while I am still wondering what is next, what option to choose, if any, I can do it with peace in my heart and the knowledge that I serve a loving God who takes care of me.

Clarity

While I should totally be getting ready to head out for the evening, I felt like I NEEDED to write. Sometimes the thoughts in my head have to come out, but I simply do not know how to verbally express them. Writing is such a neat medium, in that I can flood the paper (or screen) with my thoughts and then rework them over and over until they say exactly what I mean!

Today I feel like my brain has been swirling, like I can find no peace in there...no resting place, no landing spot. Everything is floating around, hard to grasp, and feeling so uncertain. That in itself makes my emotional state rather up and down as well, one minute feeling rather happy and the next wanting to cry. What I need is clarity. I need someone to come and wipe away the fog on this window that I am peering through, so that I can see clearly what I am to do, to feel, to say.

Thankfully, God is like a supernatural window washer. I realize that sounds funny to say, and maybe you think it is blasphemous to think of the Creator washing windows in a jumpsuit, but I think He is ok with that. See...even typing that makes me breathe out a sigh of relief. HE can clear my mind. HE can wipe away the fog.

Sometimes circumstances in life and the choices we need to make are not crystal clear. Sometimes they really are a bit foggy. I believe that God gives us the freedom to choose for ourselves, but I also believe that He is right there waiting for us to ask Him for wisdom.

So...rather than sitting around squinting through this foggy window, I will pray. I will ask God for clarity and for wisdom. And I will choose to trust Him in the wait. When the time is right, He will answer, leading the way, clearing the path before me, and wiping away the fog.

Tools In Loving Well

Recently, I have been faced with the reality, AGAIN, that I am not the great fixer of all problems. In fact, in most situations there is very little I can do in a physical way to even help friends that are experiencing tough times.You know, this is a real kick in the teeth when I want nothing more than to make it all better. I am a fixer, by nature. I want everyone to be happy, healthy, to get along, etc, etc....you get the point.

Maybe it is a friend that has a financial need...and I cannot meet it. Maybe it is a friend who has a sick spouse...and I cannot heal him or even make her pain and fear go away. Maybe it is a friend who is struggling with the greatest battle of their life at the moment...and I cannot win it for them. Maybe it is someone I love battling addiction...and I cannot free them or even make them choose well.

No matter what the situation is or how painful it may be for the ones I love, I cannot jump in and be the rescuer or the fixer. So what CAN I do?

Well, the first thing I can do, which sadly I often put last, is to pray. As a follower of Christ, I believe that when I cry out to God on behalf of those I love, He hears me and He is moved at the sound of my voice. Maybe His answers don't always look like what I desire or what I expect, but I know that He is not an apathetic God and He is working behind the scenes. Maybe He brings comfort to a heart , strength to make the right decision, a financial blessing, rest from the battle, or freedom from addiction. Maybe He just makes Himself known so that those who are in pain or afraid or in bondage do not feel alone.

Another thing that I can do is be a listening ear and encourage my friends. I think we often forget the value of just being there for someone. Just being available is a real gift to many people. In this world, where we are all so caught up in the busyness of our own lives, time is a valuable commodity. When I take time out of my life to spend focused time with a friend, whether in person or on the phone, it makes them feel loved. There is likely nothing more important in my life than making someone feel loved, valuable and cared for in a time of need. So many times people just need to vent. They just want to tell someone how they feel. They don't want me to fix their problem, they just want to talk about it. I can do that. I can also speak life giving words to them, words of love, words of encouragement, words that remind them that they are not alone, that they can get through this battle, that they are valuable and worth fighting for in this crazy rat race world that we live in.

So maybe I cannot FIX the problem and maybe I cannot rescue my friend, but I can mostly certainly pray for them , listen to them, love them, care for their heart and encourage them. I have to remind myself that these are valuable and powerful tools in loving people well, and my desire is to love people well.

Thoughts on the Past

I have recently been thinking on the darkest days of my past and walking through the stages of rejection, betrayal, denial, anger (rage really) and deep, deep pain. In the first years those were the emotions that ran the show, along with the copious amounts of beer that I drank. At some point, I had to decide that a life of anger and pain was not a full life. It was not the life that I wanted to lead. It was not the life that I wanted Mia to see and experience. It was most certainly not the kind of life that Jesus had promised me...life and life abundantly....not even close!

I managed to put on a happy face most of the time, but really I was screaming on the inside. It was like a fire was searing my soul day after day after day. Talk about a dry and weary land where there is no water (Psalm 63) , I was living there...camped out in the burning noonday sun with what felt like no shade. I so desperately wanted to do the "right" thing, to do this the "right" way. So I tried to just be nice, be happy, keep on with my life in the most normal fashion I could muster. I kept on raising my Mia, kept on going to church, even being on the worship team. I joined staff at a house of prayer and spent lots of time hanging out with Jesus in the prayer room, whether in a chair or behind a microphone or behind my guitar singing out raw songs of love to the Lord. BUT...my heart was really only on hold. It screamed and I sent it to the back burner, not allowing it to have any real precedence in my life. Surely, if I was relying on the Lord and doing this the "right" way, I would not be in agony, right? NO..wrong...dead wrong. I was drowning in my own sorrows...a frantic mess. I felt schizophrenic...trying to put on the happy face while feeling like I was dying. I was a drunk, which made me feel like my whole life was a facade, a lie. Ugh...it was awful. I was just prolonging the inevitable and boy, did it suck.

So how did I transition from the dark side into the light? Well, for me, it was all about a choice to embrace the forgiveness that Jesus talks about in the Bible and displayed with His life. I had to choose to forgive the one that had hurt me. I had to choose to forgive myself for the damage I had done in my marriage. And along side forgiveness, I had to work, like it was a full time job, to bury the hatchet so to speak...not just forgive, but let go of the offenses and hurts.

 Even more than that,though, I had to choose to face the reality of my heart and the terribly crushed, no...shredded, state that it was in. My heart was a mess and putting it on the back burner and wearing the happy mask was not serving me well at all. And without a doubt, drinking was most certainly NOT helping a thing. It just made it all the worse. I would drink and think about the life I no longer had, about the memories (good and bad), and about every single offense I had dished out and received over the course of 19 years and that, my friends, is a lot of offenses right there. Drinking heightened every emotion in quite the dramatic way. If I was angry, it turned to a boiling rage. If I was feeling sad, it turned to overwhelming despair. If I was lonely, it made me feel like I had been totally forsaken. It caused me to focus on the negative and the things that I could not control, which only made me feel more crazy and out of control.

So, in the midst of that dark and ugly and painful place, I chose to face my heart. I chose to be honest with myself, with some close and trusted friends, and with God, who already knew anyway. What I found was that when I was willing to face it head on, it was better. Now...to be brutally honest with you, it was horrifically worse before it was better. BUT IT WAS SOOOO WORTH IT!!! I can only think to describe it one way. If you have a nasty open wound and it gets dirty and infected, but you leave it untreated, it may heal over at the skin level, BUT...the infection is still there, festering under the surface. It becomes terribly painful, possibly unbearable. It may even begin to make you sick, because it effects your whole system. The only way to deal with it, is to re-open that wound and clean it out. It is a nasty and painful process, but the end result is a wound that heals nicely from the inside out. This time, when it closes up at the skin level, it is truly healed. There is probably a scar...but the pain, the anger, the resentment, the bitterness are gone.

In addition to this heart surgery that I pursued, I laid down beer (all alcohol really). I don't think for one minute that I could have gotten real healing otherwise. I needed to get healing without a crutch. I needed to do it for real, without anything clouding my vision. I wanted to rely only on the Lord and the friends He had so graciously put in my path...and to do it with clarity of thought. Honestly, to keep with the whole infected wound thing, I decided surgery without anesthesia was what I needed. I was pretty sure that if I walked around in a numbed state, that I would pass by some of the most painful spots. Friends, I did not want to pass anything by and have to deal with it later. I wanted to get as much dealt with as possible. One day I decided that enough was enough. I had some good friends pray with me and I have not had a drink since that day almost 6 years ago. It was a tough first year, but the healing and breakthrough in my life that came from giving up beer were so worth the struggle.

God was so faithful to meet me in my pursuit of healing. He sent amazing people to love me, people who spoke life and hope and love into my heart. Those days of singing raw love songs to Him in the prayer room brought so much healing to my heart. When I felt like a barren wasteland, and cried out to Him in song or in prayer,  He watered my heart with His love. He revealed Himself to me as the lover of my soul. He showed me that even in this dark and damaged state, that He loved me and saw beauty in my heart. He revealed Himself to me as my Husband. He was the one who stepped in and protected my heart, who cared for me, when I no longer had a husband. He revealed Himself to me as the Healer, when He took my ashes and in return He gave me beauty. He took my crushed heart and He put it back together...better than it was before. Really, He gave me a new heart. I do not take any of that for granted. I count it a privilege to have been so weak and broken as to need to lean on Him and Him alone in those days, because the relationship I have with Him now was born in that place. There is nothing quite like sharing suffering with someone to birth deep intimacy.

It has been 6 years since I was first separated and nearly 4 since I was divorced, and still, there is no experience that can top the pain of that experience in my life. Yet, I tell you, that  there has never been greater opportunity for the Lord to show Himself strong on my behalf. I am a new woman, a more confident woman, a more whole and complete woman on this side of things. Not because I am great or because I picked myself up by my boot straps, but because the Lord is gracious and compassionate and He put His hand out for me to come...and well, I took it. In my weakness, He was strong and He healed my broken heart.

Why do I choose to write this all now? Well, I find that it is good to revisit it from time to time. It is good to retell the stories of God's faithfulness. It is good to remind myself where I came from, because it gives me greater compassion and understanding for those that are experiencing this agony right now. And who knows...maybe the Lord can use my story to give someone else the courage they need to face their own pain head on. Maybe it will give someone hope that there is a good life, a full and abundant life available on the other side of their season of despair. Because I can tell you...this is a good life, a very good life, and I am grateful to God for it.